Lusaka, Zambia | AFP | Authorities in Zambia have banned an energy drink after laboratory results showed that it contained the active ingredient of the anti-impotence drug Viagra. SX Energy Natural Power drink, produced by Revin Zambia, is exported around the region including to Uganda, where a consumer recently complained …
Read More »A cure for HIV?
Feasible but not yet realised | Allison Webel | Assistant Professor of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University A team of scientists and physicians from the UK recently published news of a second HIV positive man, in London, who is in long-term (18-month) HIV remission after undergoing treatment for Hodgkins lymphoma. …
Read More »Prostate cancer: How it becomes resistant to treatment
Researchers say they may have unlocked the mystery of resistant prostate cancer. They hope it’ll lead to better treatments. | The Independent | It’s the second most diagnosed cancer in men, just behind skin cancer. It’s typically slow growing and there are life-saving treatments available. But, sometimes the cure can …
Read More »The battle to bring affordable antivenoms to Africa
Watamu, Kenya | AFP | Snake antivenoms have been around for 125 years, are effective and can be produced cheaply at scale. Yet Africa, with its abundance of deadly snakes, has an alarming shortage of the life-saving medicine. Experts and campaigners blame a combination of weak production capacity, feeble …
Read More »Fixing Uganda’s mental healthcare
Haruna Nyanzi Bujirita is an Addictionologist and consultant in Child and Adolescents Mental Health. He is also CEO of MetroHealth International that’s setting up the country’s first private mental hospital in Ttula-Kawempe in Kampala. He spoke to The Independent’s FLAVIA NASSAKA about addiction and why mental health is still an …
Read More »Why does breast cancer recur? New study finds clues
Tokyo, Japan | AFP | For breast cancer survivors, the risk of tumours returning casts a long shadow, with recurrence possible up to two decades after a diagnosis. But new research could help identify and treat those most in danger. Doctors have traditionally relied on factors such as the size …
Read More »‘Short’ drug-resistant TB regimen could cut treatment time by more than half
Washington, United States | AFP | A new drug cocktail reduces the length of treatment for multi drug-resistant tuberculosis from nearly two years to nine to 11 months with a similar effectiveness, according to a large clinical trial whose results were published in a US journal Wednesday. Nearly 600,000 people …
Read More »IMF offers free medical services to 600
Kampala, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Over 600 residents of Banda a Kampala suburb received free medical treatment and services for different health challenges courtesy of the International Medical Foundation (IMF), a charity organization under the International Medical Group. The all-day fair conducted in partnership with Apar Foundation, Uganda Sickle …
Read More »Uganda’s Water and Environment Week is back, bigger
Entebbe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Yoweri Museveni is today expected to officially commission the Uganda Water and Environment Week (UWEWK) organized by the Ministry of Water and Environment. The second edition of the Uganda Water and Environment Week (UWEWK ) has started, with the theme: Water and Environment …
Read More »Bribery in health 50% down
Health Monitoring Unit responsible but experts say it could be a problem | Heather Marquette, Caryn Peiffer and Rosita Armytage | In September 2017 Uganda’s Minister of Health, Dr Sarah Opendi, disguised herself in a hijab and travelled by boda boda (motorbike taxi) to Naguru Hospital in Kampala. The minister …
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